CHAPTER | Executive Summary
= Global Cannabis Consumers
Cannabis has mass consumer appeal around the world. Millions of people use cannabis recreationally. Millions more use it medicinally. In aggregate, across all state medical cannabis laws in the United States, cannabis is legally recognized as a form of therapy or medicine for more than 50 medical conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, anorexia, arthritis, cancer, chronic pain, epilepsy and post-traumatic stress disorder. Similar to the alcohol and pharmaceutical markets, we believe that the total addressable consumer market for cannabis consists of a significant portion of the global adult population.
Cannabis is the most widely cultivated, produced, trafficked and consumed drug worldwide, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). In 2003, the UNODC estimated that the global illegal cannabis market was $113 billion, with 160 million consumers. The UNODC continues to estimate the number of cannabis users worldwide and recently estimated that 183 million people globally between the ages of 15 and 64, or more than 4% of this age group, con- sumed cannabis in 2015.
In 2010, the RAND Corporation (RAND) estimated that the U.S. illegal cannabis market was $40 billion. Adjusting this estimate solely for inflation and population growth, the U.S. illegal market would now be approximately $48 billion.
Both the UNODC and RAND acknowledge the challenges inherent in studying an illegal con- sumer market, and both allow significant room for error in their estimates. However approximate, their estimates make clear that there is significant global demand for cannabis. Less clear is how quickly illegal markets will transition to legal markets, as well as the extent to which legalization may increase overall demand.
We believe that the growth of the global legal cannabis industry will be driven by increasing pen- etration in largely untapped “mainstream” consumer markets, and that the legal industry could grow to more than two times the estimated size of the current illegal market. We believe that cannabis will eventually become federally legal in the United States, for recreational enjoyment by adults and for use in a broad range of safe drugs and therapeutic products. After U.S. federal legalization, we believe that
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